Lack of advantageous plays lead to Baylor's fifth loss of season

Baylor wasn’t without its share of highlights against Kansas State, a fumble recovery, a successful fake punt, and wildly efficient quarterback play to start the game with big plays later on. But those plays might as well have been stopped by the Wildcats in the 33-20 loss. The preceding plays were stopped, leaving Baylor in a near-permanent stall, keeping the game just out of reach from the start.

The issue, if it wasn’t clear through the first five losses this season, is a struggle to take advantage of blessings. 

Whether they’re from the Bears themselves or opponents’ own shortcomings like a few penalty sequences taking away big plays or valuable field position, it was a rare sight for Baylor to jump on those second chances. An infection on both sides of the ball.

"Obviously, we had two huge miscues that put the game out of reach," Matt Rhule said. "I thought the offense fought at the end and had a chance to make a play until [Kendall] Adams made that nice play. There are areas getting better, but at the end of the day we area five, six, seven or eight plays that are preventing us from winning. We have not been able to make those plays."

Following the Wildcats’ quick-strike opening drive, Baylor followed with a field goal sticking to the aim to chew clock with a seven-minute, 13-play drive to at least keep within striking range. Less than a minute later, the ball ends back in Baylor’s hands after forcing a KSU three-and-out thanks to two drops from otherwise well-placed Jesse Ertz passes.

Baylor followed suit with its own three-play drive (though, it at least took over two minutes) before punting away as well to give the Wildcats a field goal the next drive. Baylor’s following punt ended differently with DJ Reed’s muff, putting Baylor in the red zone after landing on the fumble. 

That ended in a blocked field goal that led to the Wildcats finding the end zone on their next drive, finding success off Baylor’s misfortune, something Baylor didn’t have until John Lovett broke loose for a 74-yard TD run late in the third quarter.

"We said that this game was going to go in to the fourth quarter, but we needed to win the third quarter," freshman running back John Lovett said. "We won the third quarter, but came up short in the fourth quarter. We have a lot of work to do.”

Denzel Mims followed suit a couple drives later with a 70-yard reception to once again keep Baylor within a touchdown. But it was too little too late as Bill Snyder’s team, despite all its own struggles, took advantage of Baylor's shortcomings including any one of the 10 penalties and more blatantly, the botched snap the Wildcats recovered in their red zone, leading to an Ertz touchdown two plays later.

Though, it wasn’t for a lack of effort trying to get around Baylor’s own obstacles. Baylor drew up a fake punt with Connor Martin to keep the drive alive but only had a field goal to show for it. There was a potential targeting foul missed on Martin that could have had Baylor looking at a touchdown instead but Baylor didn’t find much success following the targeting call in the first quarter that ejected senior DB Cre Moore from the game.

There were more what-ifs including a fumble on a KSU kick return that rolled out of bounds as if the ball was controlled by the Purple Wizard of Manhattan himself Bill Snyder, or the numerous missed sacks on Ertz. But if the past is the best indicator of future performance, it wasn’t likely Baylor would have marked its first win this week even if those things went its way.

Until more is done following the breaks opponents give Baylor as KSU gave plenty in an uncharacteristically sloppy game, finding the win column will continue to be a struggle for the green and gold.

“When you do not get wins, it is always going to be a little frustrating," sophomore wide recevier Denzel Mims said. "But we just have to come to practice every day and keep working until we can make those plays to win the game.”